The Financial Planning Association has responded to a decision by Association of Independently Owned Financial Planners (AIOFP) not to use its Continuing Education assessment service by saying the AIOFP was never under any obligation to do.
The AIOFP said yesterday it had appointed the University of Adelaide as its third-party assessor for continuing education (CE) points accruing to fund manager presentations at its conference sessions, claiming the FPA’s assessment services was “too expensive”.
However FPA deputy chief executive Deen Sanders said that while the FPA establishes the rules around continuing education for the advice sector, as the professional body for the sector, only FPA members were obliged to adhere to these.
“Planners and organisations who are not FPA members often chose to follow our rules on continuing education precisely because we are the professional body for the sector and not because there is any compulsion to do so, as the AIOFP appears to believe.”
He said that all that ASIC as the regulator requires for planners to meet their annual continuing education obligations is for a planner to be “continuously trained and compliant”, he said.
“As long as you can provide evidence you have done some form of education and you are compliant in the areas you claim to be authorised for, then ASIC will accept that.
“You can meet these obligations from anywhere, without having anything to do with the FPA’s Continuing Education program, if you are not a member of the FPA.”
